Whoops! Alabama Anti-Sharia Bill Lifted From Wikipedia

Earlier this week, we told you about the Missouri state legislator who instructed reporters to “Google” Sharia law, because he couldn’t think of any real-life examples that would justifiy his proposal to ban it. It’s part of a trend: In Tennessee, the author of the state’s proposed ban on Islamic law confessed that the bill could probably be phrased a little better; two weeks ago, a South Dakota lawmaker tabled his anti-Sharia proposal after learning that beheading one’s wife was already illegal in the Mount Rushmore State.

But this story from Alabama, via the Anniston Star, trumps everything. State senator Gerald Allen introduced a bill to ban Islamic law from state courts, making his state the 17th to consider such a proposal since the beginning of 2010. Just one problem:

[The] definition is the same, almost word for word, as wording in the Wikipedia entry on Shariah law as it appeared Thursday. Allen said the wording was drafted by Legislative staff. A source on the staff at the Legislature confirmed that the definition was in fact pulled from Wikipedia.

Allen could not readily define Shariah in an interview Thursday. “I don’t have my file in front of me,” he said. “I wish I could answer you better.”

Probably not by coincidence, something similar happened in 2005, when Allen attempted to ban schools and libraries from purchasing books by gay authors (actual quote from Allen: “I don’t think of it as censorship”). Anyway, here’s the Guardian:

I ask him, again, for specific examples. Although heterosexuals are apparently an endangered species in Alabama, and although Allen is a local politician who lives a couple miles from my house, he can’t produce any local examples. “Go on the internet,” he recommends. “Some time when you’ve got a week to spare,” he jokes, “just go on the internet. You’ll see.”